Interviews

view	About Umpires Bill McGowan, Tom Gorman, and Nicholas “Red” Jones Tom Ferrick, Al Brancato, and Mickey Vernon's stories about umpires Bill McGowan, Tom Gorman, and Nicholas "Red" Jones.
view	Gene Woodling Outfielder Gene Woodling was a key member of he New York Yankees’ five consecutive World Championships (1949-1953.The career .284 left-hand batter played for six teams over 18 years (1943-1962) with two years in the navy. We sat and talked at the dining room table in the farmhouse outside Medina where he had lived for almost forty-five years.
view	Mickey Owen Undeserving Goat of the 1941 World Series Arnold “Mickey” Owen is one of those star-crossed ballplayers remembered for one ignominious moment out of a long career. But there is more to the story of his 13 years with the Cardinals, Dodgers, Cubs and Red Sox, plus another 4 ½ in the Mexican League, beginning in 1937, than that notorious passed ball in the 1941 World Series. In his hotel room the morning after playing in an old-timers game in Pittsburgh in June 1990, Owen, a knowledgeable student of baseball history going back to 1840, and analyst of stats by decades, described the World Series incident and predicted the coming of 10-year, $100 million contracts for superstars.
view	Tommy Brown During WW II, major league baseball made do with players who were too young or too old to be drafted, or physically unfit for active duty. In 1943 Brooklyn-born Tommy Brown was a fifteen-year-old high school dropout working on the New York docks and playing sandlot baseball on weekends. One year later he became the youngest player ever to start a major league game and a year later the youngest to hit a home run. He had a nine-year career 1944-1953 as a utility infielder and outfielder with the Dodgers, Phillies and Cubs.
view	Vern Law Vern Law’s entire 16-year career, 1950-1967 (with two years in the army), was spent pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, with a 162-147 record and a 1960 Cy Young Award. He started three games in the ‘60 World Series, winning two with one no decision. Why did the three-sports star in high school in Idaho sign with the Pirates?
view	Willie Kamm A slick-fielding third baseman for the White Sox (1923-1931) and Cleveland (1931-1935), Willie Kamm led the league in putouts or assists more than half the time, and was voted the Sox all-time third baseman in 1954. Despite a .281 lifetime BA, the label “good field no hit” dogged him throughout his career. I visited Kamm one day in the spring of 1984 at his neat, well-landscaped home where he lived alone on a quiet street in Burlingame, about two miles from the San Francisco airport. His wife had died a year before. His son lived nearby.